In response to her inquiry, her name and the card were despatched to Mr. Collins by a miniature boy endowed with a gape that threatened to lift his head off, and, pending the interview, she attempted to subdue her nervousness.
A man with a satchel bustled in, and made hurried reference to "Vol. two of the Dic." and "The fourth of the Ency." Against the window an accountant with a fresh complexion and melancholy mien totted up columns.
Seeing that everybody—the melancholy accountant not excepted—favoured her with a gratified stare, she concluded that women were infrequently employed here, and she trembled with the fear that her application might be refused. She assured herself that the Scotsman would never have spoken so confidently of a favourable issue if it had not been reasonable to expect it, but the doubt having entered her head, it was difficult to dispel. It occurred to her that she could astonish the accountant by telling him that she was on the brink of destitution. The perspiring young packers, sure of their dinners by-and-by, looked to her individuals to be felicitated on their prosperity, and, luckless as they were, it is a fact that a person's lot is seldom so poor but that another person worse off can be found to envy it. The book-keeper who has grown haggard in the firm's employ at a couple of pounds a week is the envy of the clerk who lives on eighteen shillings, and the wight who sweeps the office daily thinks how happy he would be in the place of the clerk. The urchin who hawks matches in the rain envies the sheltered office-boy, and the waif without coppers to invest envies the match-seller. The grades of misery are so infinite, and the instinct of envy is so ingrained, that when two vagrants crouched under a bridge have tightened their belts to still the gnawings of their hunger, one of the pair will find something to be envious of in the rags of the outcast suffering at his side.
Messrs. Pattenden's youngster reappeared, and, with a yawn so tremendous that it eclipsed his previous effort, said:
"Miss Brettan!"
Mr. Collins was seated in a compartment just large enough to contain a desk and two chairs. He signed Mary to the vacant one, and gave her a steady glance of appreciation. A man who had risen to the position of conducting the travelling department of a firm that published on the subscription plan, he was something of a reader of temperament; a man who had risen to the position by easy stages while yet young, he was kindly and had not lost his generosity on the way.
"Good-morning," he said; "what can I do for you?"
"I want to represent you with one of your publications," she answered. "Mr. Macpherson was good enough to offer me the introduction, and he thought you would be able to arrange with me." The nervousness was scarcely visible. She had entered well, and spoke without hesitancy, in a musical voice. All these things Mr. Collins noted. Before she had explained her desire he had wished that she might have it. The book-agent is of many types, and skilful advertisements hinting at noble earnings, without being explicit about the nature of the pursuit, had brought penurious professional men and reduced gentlewomen on to that chair time and again. But these applicants had generally cooled visibly when the requirements of the vocation were insinuated; and here was one, as refined as any of them, who came comprehending that she would have to canvass, and prepared to do it! Mr. Collins nearly rubbed his hands.
"What experience have you had?"
"In—as an agent? None. But I suppose with a fair amount of intelligence that doesn't matter very much?"